A Delivery Gown to RAWR In!

June 27, 2016

It’s no secret that I really like to wear dinosaurs on my clothes. (Sidenote: It’s a lot easier to find dinosaurs on baby clothes so I’ve totally been stockpiling dino clothes from the thrift store for Evie and every time wishing that I could get the fabric or the clothes in my size). I figured that, of all times in my life that I might need an extra bit of RAWR to get me through, labor and delivery would be at the top. So I sewed myself a delivery gown out of dino print fabric (an awesome thrift store score).

The gown silhouette is essentially a raglan sleeve muumuu. I added fullness for the front (to accommodate a very pregnant belly) by putting a couple of large pleats in the front neckline. They’re pulled pretty taught in this photo since Eloise is larger all around than I am, but there was quite a bit of ease when I wore it. I was a little short on fabric so to keep the gown as long as possible (so that my lady bits were only on display when they needed to be, not all the time), I cut the sleeves out of scraps left behind. To stretch what fabric I had, I added a strip of polka-dot fabric to the top and bottom of the sleeve (scraps leftover from a vintage style summer top).

The back has snaps that I set at several inches apart using an assortment of different color snap heads that match the fabric.

For the front of the gown, I used snap tape across the front raglan seam and down the side a bit so that the gown would snap open quickly for nursing. The standard hospital gown has the seam with snaps on the top of the shoulder, so when you unsnap it, the back of the gown falls down behind you. By putting it on a raglan sleeve, the sleeve stays in place while unsnapped.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to wear this gown during labor (I had visions of pacing the halls and making others smile with my gown) since we didn’t make it to the hospital for delivery, but I did wear it for the day that I spent in the hospital post-delivery and I was glad to have it then.

Comments 2

I LOVE wearing dinosaurs too! I have stopped buying rtw in an attempt to force myself to sew more, but a good dino print always ends that argument. If you know of, or ever find some awesome dinosaur print fabric, would love for you to share!!